


Backtrace

by Missy



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Second Chances, Suicide, Supernatural Elements, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1347163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael gets one more chance to go back and do it all again, but fate might not let him have the happy ending he craves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backtrace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fix-It Big Bang in '13/'14.

Azure water lapped at Michael Westen’s ankles. It was March now, and shockingly mild for an Irish summer. He was resting beside a small lake, and the trees were bursting with fresh green leaves. This was Charlie’s first summer overseas, and he seemed to be enjoying his new surroundings, though his complains grew about the distance as spring had encroached upon them. The child missed school more than he and Fiona had anticipated, and the both of them were at a loss as to how to socialize the boy now. Michael purposefully set aside his thoughts – today was for leisure, and he was taking another day off. Fiona had told him to rest for as long as possible while she and Charlie made lunch; he still had to pause occasionally to take stock of the major move he’d just made. Michael knew he didn’t have too much more time to brood; soon he would need to go off and find himself some sort of gainful employment.

He tried not to think of what his death had likely done to the rest of his family. His mother was cold in the ground. Sam and Jesse had their retirement and desk job respectively; knowing them they were probably taking up cases of their own – and without Michael’s influence to guide them there was no telling how much trouble they’d gotten themselves into. Michael reminded himself to call Samno, no. Maybe he wouldn’t yet. Wouldn’t reintroducing himself into his best friend’s life just make things more difficult for his best friend? The more he thought about it, the better idea seemed to be to sit back and stay hidden, to allow time would forget him, erase him from history, his name rubbing away like the letters upon his fake tombstone.

He was fine with that. He had Fiona.

And he also had a secluded lake, perfect for a quick swim. The water was sweetly warm, beckoning him closer. He supposed he would be fine with a short dip. The waves caressed his bare chest like a lover, hypnotizing him, the strokes of his arms through the wet expanse lulling him into a false sense of security. Before he knew it he had kicked beyond the shore, far off the sand bar, deep into the center of the massive, pine-shrouded lake. Michael wasn’t concerned; He’d been further out before, so he paddled determinedly onward, until land itself turned into a faint line at his peripheral vision.

Something was wrong. Deeply, incredibly, unfathomably wrong.

And that was when his leg cramped.

His training had prepared him for this, forced him to slip through the water on the strength of his arms, but not even that was enough to keep Michael buoyant. There was no driftwood, no current to keep him afloat, his body sank like a stone through the eerily calm water. The cramp raced up his hip, and Michael let out an outraged squawk as he bobbed back under the surface.

Blackness seeped into the edge of his vision. He could feel the quicksand of the weight of it tugging him, pulling him down, trying to force him to subsume his entire body into the warm, swirling vortex of unconsciousness. Fear gave way to acceptance, to peace, and then to a rush of white light that dragged him to a fresh plane of being.

A plane ruled over by a cackling man in army fatigues.

In the moment it took Michael to realize his guardian - …oh God, how the hell did he become an…angel- was Larry Sizemore, the older man approached him, a cigar perched between his flicking fingers.

“I don’t believe it. After all of this,” Michael groaned, “I ended up in hell?”

“Hell?” Larry chuckled. “You give me too much credit, kid. Nah, this is the place where bad little spies go when they’re good deep down inside – but they screwed up just enough to wind up somewhere nicer than Satan’s hibachi.” Larry spread out his arms. “Welcome to purgatory, kid.”

Michael rubbed his waterlogged temples. “How do I fix it?”

Larry grinned. “Michael, how do you know there’s anything you can fix?”

“Because if there wasn’t a way back, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Touche,” he replied. Sitting back down behind his desk, he pulled out a sheaf of pure white paper and started flipping through it. Then he let out a low, slow whistle. “Well, damn, Michael…

“…That’s impossible.” He swallowed hard. “James was neutralized, and did my damndest to…”

“Buuut you didn’t.” Larry poked the page before him and gave it a manic grin. “If you stay on the path the two of you picked, Boyscout Sam takes a shiv in the gut from one of Kendrick’s friends and dies in two years, you go down attending his funeral, and then Glenanne spends her prime years twisting the boy into a little, compact, but highly deadly super soldier…. and they both blow up in a revenge-bombing ten years after that.” He grinned. “Close but no cigar.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “I thought…” 

“Don’t think. Remember what I told you? Thinky bad, bang bang good!” He kicked up his heels and sighs. “Okay, look – either way, the timeline is fucked. You weren’t supposed to die back there, and the big cheese is pretty ticked off about it.” He returned the file to its proper place and then cracked his knuckles. “So, out of the goodness of my heart, I’m gonna offer you a deal, kid.”

Michael’s expression remained stony. “I won’t take it.”

“Oh fine. But if you don’t, you ruin the lives of all of your friends, destroy your reputation, and I can guarantee you that little Charlie ends up a steak sub at the age of eighteen.”

Michael glowered. “If I go back…how far will you send me?”

Larry grinned, slapped his hands together. “Here’s the kicker! We’re both going back. He’s taking you all the way through the past year, back to the morning before all of this went sideways – the day before your friend got shot in the chest by Anson.”

Michael was temporarily taken aback. That was before they’d burned the loft, before his mother had died, before he and Fi had faked their deaths, before little Charlie had been sucked into the whirlpool of their lives, before Sam’s near-death and before his mother had burned down her own house. Before Sonya and James and everything that had gone wrong in their lives.

Before Nate had died.

Michael’s eyes flared slightly, but he repressed any further sign of excitement with his typical elephantine will. “No hitches, no conditions?”

“The only condition is don’t die. That’s basically it. Oh, did you mean the rules you use to keep your world black and white instead of gray?” There was a patient sigh. “Just try not to get your family killed. Oh, and try not to get me killed while you’re at it.” Michael’s teeth clacked together, but Larry only grinned. “Think you can handle that soldier?”

Michael cracked a parody of a smile. “I’ll try my best.”

“Hah! Knowing you you’ll make a nuclear war happen.” He received a sharp, quick blow to the shoulder, one that spun him around. “You’ve got one more chance, kid,” said Larry. Michael’s expression stayed stony, even when the older man pecked him upon his cheek. “Don’t screw it up.”

All retorts died on his tongue. There was a grand moment of light-headedness, a student pulsation at the base of his throat. In a flash of light, Michael felt himself melting, gelling and falling away, spiraling toward the nothingness of the blank, cold void of unconsciousness. He felt no pain, no joy…

And then he realized he’d collapsed onto a feather mattress. 

Automatically he reached for his weapon, groping against bare skin that announced his nudity. He sprung up, eyes flung wide, and groped for his gun against the warm, silky familiarity of bare sheets. After a moment his eyes registered objects in the darkness, then a crack of lightning illuminated the lovely peach-colored interior of the loft. He felt his heart creak in dismay; he’d shed many homes in his time, but none as important, as momentous, as this one. He was stricken by the desire to get up and caress every object in the place; to brew a cup of Fi’s Coffee, brewed with beans straight from Bewleys in Dublin, then sit out on the back steps and listen to people in the club drunkenly come and go, the dull thump of Miami’s night life at his feet. No, he wanted to call his brother – it had to be midnight, and only nine there, he’d be up with Charlie – Charlie who just passed his first birthday and who would be keeping his parents up with his cries. Nate would be bored, would be ready and willing to chat, and Michael could distract him, keep him away from the betting parlor for another day. He could spend an hour working on the Charger’s chassis, prodding at stuck parts, trying to figure out how to fix the air conditioner Sam had (poorly) installed in its dash. He could take Fiona out and go clubbing with her.

 

In short he was home. In short, it was the loft.

It had never looked more beautiful.

He felt a slim, warm hand encircle his wrist and he jerked in her direction. Fiona sat staring at him, lying at his left, nude and burnished in the lamplight. Firey was her disposition, the slightly hint of defiance in her eyes. Michael couldn’t tear his eyes from her. This Fiona didn’t wear the haunted mask of her older version; she hadn’t spent significant time in prison and she didn’t carry the weight of so many personal deaths on her shoulders; she had a freshness, an innocence about her that would soon be stripped away.

…but not if Michael had anything to say about it.

“What’s wrong?” She frowned when Michael didn’t respond, gently shoving his shoulder. “Michael. Please?”

He snapped out of his trance. “Nightmares,” he said.

“It’s because of those files.” She frowned. “I don’t know why you need to dredge up the past.”

He cracked an awkward smile, got an arm around her slim waist. “I was back in Botswana,” he said, picking a place from his memories at random.

He’d told Fiona about most of his exploits, and she’ managed to guess the rest, but his declaration hadn’t been a convincing one; her eyebrow rose, and she pulled away to cross her arms. “Michael, you’ve never been in Botswana. What on earth is going on?”

He and flung a look about himself, scanning the room, fear inflaming his heart. “It’s a long story. And a different nightmare.” He scrubbed a hand over his head. “I think I’ve finally figured out what I’m going to do with those papers.” Indeed, they still sat in a pile in his kitchen.

“Michael,” Fiona grumbled, rolling over and burying her face against the back of his neck. “You know you’re chasing thin air. We tracked down every single person attached to your burn,” she ran the tips of her fingers down his rib cage. “They’re all in prison. Or dead.” Her nipples stiffened against his shoulderblade as she uttered that final word, and he had to muffle a laugh against the back of his hand. 

“I think I have a lead,” he declared. “And I know what I’m going to do.” He rested against her form. “How do you feel about having brunch with my mother?”

***

The following afternoon, Michael sat soaking in the sun at an outdoor table at the Café Carlito. The answer to that question had been a clear a yes but it hadn’t provided Michael with a single usable bit of information. In fact, the long – nay endless- afternoon had yielded up plenty of gossip about her new neighbor, the tacky job Mrs Reynolds had made of her brand-new garage, and how her new painting classes had gone.

“I’m thinking of taking up painting myself,” Fiona said, and Michael shuddered at the memory of those blood-strewn canvases at the apartment she shared with Carlos. 

But it had been for naught. Fiona had stuffed herself with pasta salad, spent some time in Madeline’s bedroom straightening pictures, and watched General Hospital until she decided to call the afternoon a wash and cut her losses. She’d created a distraction significant enough to allow Michael to pull up with the Charger for a pick-up.

He erased the conversation from his microrecorder with a sigh, clicking open the Charger’s passenger-side door for Fiona. All of the news had been cheerfully impersonal and insufficient for trapping Anson before he killed Max and framed Fiona for the murders of those security guards. In the end, he had spent the entire afternoon baking in the Charger, sucking down frozen yogurt with a wireless jack shoved into his ear canal and listening to his mother describe her indigestion issues for nothing.

 

“Sorry about that,” he said grimly at last, turning the engine.

“Michael, I will never turn down the opportunity to spend time with your mother,” Fiona said. She raised an eyebrow. “Do you think I didn’t get anything for you?”

“Didn’t sound like you did,” Michael replied. 

Fiona opened her purse, pulling out a small square of notepad paper which had been carefully smudged from its original locale via a swift, neat application of a pencil, the words in sharp relief, bubbled up in Madeline’s looping, scrawled hand. _Appointment with Doctor Anson resched 4:20 PM Saturday._ “I don’t know what good it will do you.”

“Plenty,” Michael said, his tone all-business. “My mom usually has her therapy appointments on Friday mornings. If he’s cancelling on his most important patient then he has to be planning to strike, and he’s going to do it tomorrow afternoon.” Fiona eyeballed him. “I know what that look means,” he replied. 

“You ought to. I’m worried about you, Michael. You’re obsessed over this.”

He shook his head. “I have evidence linking this guy to a lot of bad stuff. That feeling I’ve had that we missed one person, that something’s been missing the entire time – it was real. This guy’s the missing piece, and we need to stop him before he does something terrible.” Fiona glowered. “well?” Michael asked.

“Have I ever stopped you from going out on your wild goose chases before?”

Michael grinned. “You’re wonderful, Fi.”

“Wonderful enough for a little dinner at Marconi’s?”

“And ballet,” Michael added.

“The bloody ballet?!” Fiona shook her head. “This must be important.”

“You’ll never know how important,” Michael said, letting the engine drown his voice out. “Hopefully.”

*** 

“So that’s where we are, Sam. It wasn’t without merit; we found out her therapist cancelled her afternoon appointment to ‘attend a convention’. That leaves him a huge window to do what I know he’s going to do.” Michael leaned against the workbench, with its files spread out across the wooden surface. “What do you think?”

Sam paused, biting his bottom lip before earnestly looking Michael in the eyes. “To be honest, Mike, it sounds like a pile of bull.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Sam?” 

“How in the world would you know if this guy’s really guilty?” He eyed the files. “He’s got a spotless record, years as a therapist under his belt, and a clientele that would gladly vouch for him – including your ma.”

But Michael knew exactly what he was planning on doing; assassinating Max, then presenting himself as a helpless client while forcing them to run all over Miami in protection of the very man trying to frame him. Not that he could inform Sam of that little twist of fate. “I just have a gut feeling,” he explained. “I know that if we don’t show up at Max’s office before two tomorrow there’s going to be a problem.” His look grew steely, a little sharp. “You don’t want us to have any problems, do you, Sam?”

Sam backed away from the butcher’s block, his cartoonish expression betraying his mild fear of Michael. “No, but I know what happens when you bark up the wrong tree. I lose cars and you end up in the county lock up.”

Michael was utterly inflexible, and he just kept staring right at Sam. “It won’t go down that way again.”

“No offense, brother,” Sam dipped his head into the freezer and pulled out a bottle of chilled beer, “but every time you say that I end up with bruised ribs and a pissed-off girlfriend. And I don’t want to piss off Elsa. She’s special.”

Michael started shuffling his evidence together. “When she’s not frightening you with her ingrown toenails?” 

“No no, those weren’t toenails - they were warts.”

“How could I have forgotten?” 

Sam groaned, rubbing his temple. “This is awfully risky, Mike.”

“Not if we go about it the right way.”

“But what IS the right way?” Sam wondered.

Michael paused, staring at his hands while he ransacked his brain for ideas. At last one popped into view, shiny and fresh. He gave Sam a grin.

“Do you still have that UPS uniform?”

*** 

“I don’t know, Mike. I still have all of those papers to file, and if I don’t get a jump on them Tom’s going to get awfully sore. Besides, me and the missus have tickets to the ballet this weekend, and she’ll kill me if I don’t make it.”

“Just trust me on this, Max,” Michael said into his phone. “I need a top guy on this case, and there was nobody else to call but my partner.”

The very thought of being needed perked Max right up, and he followed Michael straight to his waiting PT Cruiser, a new perk from a freshly-signed agreement with the CIA. The scene was a falsified one, of course, and he and Sam had set it up with careful choices and thorough scripting. Two hours before Max’s original date of death, Michael spirited him off; away to a lunch hour that would be filled with completely harmless mystery and intrigue. In the end, he found a way to get him to the rondevouz point with seconds to spare. Sam had provided Michael with just what he’d asked for; the UPS uniform and a buddy – who happened to be an old seal. Daubed in hopefully-faked sweat, his disheveled costume betokening the notion of a terrible struggle, Lew told them all about a bunch of gangsters who had accosted his truck and stolen a package. Max took the story in, paying keen attention to the entire story with head bobs and worried expressions. His pen scribbled animatedly across the pad, taking it all in, making sure that he didn’t miss a single word. After letting him go on for close to an hour, Michael blurted out the key phrase; ‘good luck’.

Two minutes later Lew’s chest exploded in a hail of ‘bullets’ and he fell, pale and twitching, to the floor.

“Jesus!” Sam cried out, throwing his body over his friends while Michael tried to stop Max from doing the same. 

He glanced at Lew, who had the balls to wink at Michael as he slithered under Sam’s wriggling body. It looked good too, the wounds deep and crimson and vital-seeming. Bless Fiona and her squib work.

Michael remained focused upon the task at hand and pushed Max behind him, taking out his gun and furatively glancing around them. 

“Where did those shots come from!?” 

“I dunno!” Sam shouted back, craning his neck, pretending to scan the perimeters. “Looks like they got away clean. Damn it!”

Michael crawled over to Sam, then started grilling him with the impassioned fear of a man who knew his moments were numbered. “Did anybody tail you?”

Sam shook his head wildly. “I swear, Mike, I doubled back so we wouldn’t have any problems.”

Michael frowned. “Are you kidding? Problems’re all we’re gonna have from now on! Do you know who that guy really was!?”

“Whatt’re you saying?!” Sam asked. “You sound crazy, Mike!”

 

“I’m not crazy but the US Consulate in Monaco are going to be when they hear from me about this!” Sam squinted and Michael said quickly. “That man was no simple UPS driver! He was a diplomat!”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place?” Sam shouted. “Damn it, Mike, we’re gonna have to spend years in deep-cover looking for whoever killed that guy!”

“What about Max?” Michael said.

“Yeah,” Sam said, his eyes narrowing. “What ABOUT Max?”

Max quickly held up both of his hands. “Woah fellas! I won’t be any problem, I swear!”

“Oh, we know you won’t,” Sam said. “’Cause you’re gonna be taking a little trip!”

Max’s fingers inched toward the holster on his thigh – to avoid a bigger mess, Michael quickly intervened. “We’ll have you sent to the finest villa in the loveliest section of Rome.”

“And you just want us to go? To disappear?” Max cringed. “But I can’t disappear! What about my wife?”

“She’ll go with you,” Sam said. “Call it a long vacation,” he suggested. “Tell her it’s for the job and that you’re going to be back as soon as you can – but for the next few years you’re going to have to lay low and keep your noses clean.”

“That’ never been a problem, man.” Michael watched Sam drag his friend’s ‘body’ toward the trunk, covering his ‘oofs’ with louder grunts of his own.

“Mike,” said Max, wincing, “My wife is going to…”

“….Kill you, I know,” Michael said. “But at least now neither of you will be really dead.”

*** 

“Whelp, Mikey,” Sam said as he slung himself against the Charger’s trunk, “there goes one henpecked man.”

“Henpecked but well-loved,” Michael corrected Sam. “You’re sure your buddy can keep him happy over there?”

“Oh sure. He’s got a guy who has mafia problems. Max and his wife’ll be busy forever trying to run interference for ‘em. They’ll have a hell of a sweet life.” Sam frowned, played with his belt buckle. “You never said why it was so important that he get out of the county.”

“I’ve shown you my evidence, Sam.” His own look was steely now, a little distant. “We need to stop Anson from using my mom, and the only way to do that is to put a buffer between them.” 

“I don’t understand why your ma’s therapist would try to use her to get to you.”

“You don’t need to understand,” Michael said. “You just have to trust me.”

Sam’s mouth crinkled into a grin. “Have I ever not trusted you, brother?”

Michael grinned back. “Then it’d be bad luck to start now.”

Sam shook his head, gave Michael a know-it-all-grin. “You’re lucky I owe ya, Mikey.”

“You’re lucky I’m willing to pay the bills,” Michael replied.

“And for drinks. Let’s go get another round.”

**** 

Madeline and Fiona waited for them - and they had Jesse in tow- by the time they reached their usual table. Michael instantly knew something was wrong – that his meticulous plans had sprung a leak.

“Mom,” Michael said through a stiff grin, “what are you doing here?” 

Madeline raised an eyebrow, locked eyes with Fiona. “This is what I meant when I told you they don’t listen. You raise them up right and they lie to you!” She reached for the breast pocket of her shirt and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting up as Michael extended a warning index finger. “And don’t give me any of that ‘don’t smoke out here, ma’ stuff! I’m outside, and I know my rights!”

Michael cringed, the fakest smile he could manage insincerely plastering itself across his lips. “That’s not an answer.”

“You don’t need an answer!” Madeline replied briefly.

Fiona sighed. “You might as well tell him, Maddie. I’m sure he’s already guessed what’s wrong, anyway.”

Madeline continued to glare at Michael. “I’ve put up with a lot of nonsense because of your job, Michael, but my therapist! Poor Mister Anson, he wouldn’t harm a fly!”

“That harmless ‘doctor’ of yours has been secretly controlling my life for years, Ma. He’s one of the men who had me burned.”

“I thought you took care of all of those men this summer!”

“Yeah, that’s the problem – I thought I took care of him. But I haven’t, and he’s been using you to gather intel on me.” He reached for Madeline’s free hand. “Ma, I need to know what you told him about us.”

She glowered at him, tried to pull her hand out of his grip. “Not about your work,” she said. “But…I had to tell him about your father. And about Nate and his old problems.”

Michael grimaced. He hadn’t been able to save his father, but he’d save his mother this time. “How long have you been seeing doctor Anson?”

She looked guilty. “Since you started living here in Miami.”

Michael caught Sam’s concerned look, and automatically he reached for Fiona’s hand. “We’re going to fight fire with fire,” Michael said. 

“What do you mean?” Fiona wondered.

“Mikey, are you crazy ? Do you even know this guy? If he’s powerful enough to get you burned, he’s powerful enough…”

“To get all of us killed. Or put away for a very long time. I told you, Sam – you’re going to have to trust me.” He grabbed his sunglasses from the table and donned them, then turned again toward Maddie. “We’ll start by wiring you up for your next session. Jesse and Sam will take you to the meeting, Fiona and me will both be listening from the street. We’ll need you to find out why he’s so interested in me.”

“What if this is just another trap?” Madeline asked. He could see genuine fear in her eyes, knew that she knew that something was wrong, deep down, but that she couldn’t let herself believe that she put Michael in danger.

“Follow Sam’s lead,” he said. “Do what he’s doing – trust me.”

She glanced at Fiona, who shrugged. “I don’t see why not. It might be fun, trusting him,” Fiona declared, sipping her bloody mary. Her insolence was so wonderful – he’d forgotten this side of her personality and nearly reached over the table for a kiss.

Madeline winced. “All right, what’s your plan?”

*** 

Michael’s plan was to entrap Anson through his own words, expose him as a fraud doctor and a sham of a human being. The first few sessions yielding nothing, and Michael well knew how much Madeline had told her doctor, though now he was ready to combat Anson’s knowledge with knowledge of his own. Fiona’s hands were clean as of this very moment; there was no bombing, no dead guards, no dead Larry. The key would be to keep Larry from barricading himself in that building, and to stop Fiona from blowing him up. 

“Michael,” she said, as if he’d conjured up her complaint via sheer force of his own will, “how much longer are you going to force me to kneel in the back seat of this car?”

“Until we have what we need.” His eyes widened, his hands tightening around the tiny digital recorder. Inside of her therapist’s office, his mother had gone off-script.

“DINNER?” Fiona hissed in Michael’s ear. “Has Madeline gone completely daft?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m sending Sam in.” A quick call got him in touch with Sam…and it sounded as if his mouth was full.

“Sorry, Mike –the meatball subs in the cafeteria here are swank. Jesse’s had three roast beef sandwiches just waiting for you to call.”

“Sam’s right,” Jesse called, while Michael smacked his own forehead in frustration.

“Can we please focus guys?!”

“All right already!” Sam said. 

“Guys, this is an emergency. I’m not getting why you’re reacting so casually here.” 

“Mike,” Jesse said, finally using his phone in a direct manner, “you keep telling Maddie to trust you. Why don’t you trust Maddie?”

Silence filled the space between Michael and Sam. Powerful silence that seemed to rip at Michael’s conscious. “Fine. Stay ready, but you shouldn’t go in.”

“Good boy,” Sam teased, forcing Michael to roll his eyes and slump against the seat.

Fiona glared at the phone, holding it cradled like a dying sparrow in the palm of her hand. Then she pitched it against the dash. “Damn it, Michael, if we lose Madeline…”

“We won’t,” Michael said. “I have to do what Sam suggested – I’m just going to have to trust her until this is over.”

Fiona jutted out her jaw in quiet protest, then grumpily turned toward the radio. Madeline kept exchanging pleasantries with Anson that twisted his gut, but he had not option but to wait for Madeline to leave the office. She was summarily picked up by Sam and Jesse, but Michael’s phone sprung to life.

“Hey Mikey – looks like we’re stopping for ice cream.”

Michael groaned but didn’t fight them on it. For he knew exactly why Anson wanted to know him so badly. To stop him was to stop Card, to stop Card was to stop James. If he beat the system with Anson, he could beat fate with them all.

*** 

The following evening they convened for dinner, and Maddie had prepared a veritable feast for the entire group. Naturally, Michael and Fiona appeared just as the meal started – on the pretext of returning Madeline’s broken television. She then dished up a dinner for all of them that was eaten up in utter silence. Anson’s exterior was impenetrable, and he continued to play fatherly, doting psychiatrist while Madeline tried to avoid revealing any further information to him. Michael kept his anger under cover, but couldn’t stop his eyes from flashing at the man’s insolence. 

After hours of stale rolls and congealed carrots, Anson pushed away from the table and rubbed his stomach. “Well, Madleine - this squash was certainly….fried…” he choked out. “I’ve had a great time, but I’m going to have to be going.” Madeline had been plying all of them with starchy meatloaf and mashed potatoes for hours, and the only edible facet of the meal had been that squash. 

“So soon?” Maddie asked. “I have a chocolate cake in the kitchen.”

“I couldn’t possibly…”

“But it’s from a bakery.”

“Maybe one slice,” Anson said, folding his palms. “So, Michael…how’s your job been treating you?”

“Fine,” Michael said flatly, clearly refusing to discuss the subject further.

“No complaints at all?” he asked. “You haven’t lost any clients lately? You aren’t on edge?”

“Not as edgy as you seem? What’s your problem? Lies clogging up your tongue?”

Anson leaned back in his chair, chuckling malevolently. Michael just knew that he had a whale of a story for them all – and he also knew that he had a Sig Saur filled with bullets strapped to his hip. If it came down to a gun fight he knew every nook and cranny of this house, and he knew forty different ways to sneak quietly sneak a body out of it without alerting the neighbors to a ‘domestic dispute’.

But Anson seemed perfectly confident of his surrounding as he stared Michael down. “You thought you had me snowed, didn’t you? Come on, Michael – we both know you’re smarter than this. And we both know that you’re afraid of the advantage I have over you.” Michael glared back. “I know you know I got rid of your mother’s psychiatrist. And I know you know I’ve been using her for information. Your family’s terrible at controlling their body language. Just a tiny little tip.”

Michael said nothing, his fingers tightening on the arm of his chair. He heard Fiona’s fingers worry the material of her skirt – she was ready to leap into the fray at his gesture, at her own instinct, but Michael knew better.

“All of that information, Anson – and yet you don’t have anything to nail me with, do you?” The older man’s smile dimmed a notch, and Michael plunged onward. “You don’t have anything to hold over my head. I’m in the agency clean, I haven’t made any mistakes, and you don’t have anything to hold over my head.”

“What about your little friend?” He glared at Fiona. “Miss Glenanne, are your papers in order? Because I could make waves at the DMV: the kinda waves girls like you wouldn’t want to deal with.”

But Fiona had a ready retort for him. “Didn’t Madeline tell you I’ve been a naturalized citizen for years?” she gave him a syrupy smile. “It was her idea, after all.”

“Sam did offer to make an honest woman of you.”

“We won’t talk about that in company…as impolite as it is….” Fiona primly sipped her drink.

“And before you try to threaten Sam and Jesse, 

“You really think you have me, don’t you?” Anson’s laughter took on a maniacal quality, and his eyes darted from Fiona’s face to the opening kitchen door. “I know things about you that no man has ever known about Michael Westen! I have more power than you’ve ever had in your whole miserable life! I’m the one holding the gun here, Michael! I’m the one who makes the rules! Whatt’re you going to do about that, huh?”

He cackled wildly, head thrown back…and then collapsed face-down into his leftover meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

Michael turned his questioning eyes toward his mother as she entered the room, but Maddie shrugged. 

“Four of Fiona’s special knock-out drops in his water. He never saw it coming.” Michael and Fiona cast wide eyes at one another while Maddie set the cake down on the table. “Glad it worked. This cake cost me forty dollars and this plate was your great-grandma Sofie’s; would’ve been a shame to crack it open over his miserable head.” Another pause as she sucked a fingerful of pink icing from the tip of her thumb. “Why’re you just sitting there?”

Her words had a sharp effect on both Michael and Fi; the two of them simultaneously lept to their feet and reached for Anson’s wrists. Fiona held him tightly while Michael leaped toward Anson, zip-ties in hand.

“It’s about time the two of you did something,” Maddie groused. “I think I gained two pants sizes just trying to keep up with him.” 

“I’ll buy you new pants,” Michael declared absently, and dragged Anson – face-down- toward the garage for his eventual interrogation.

**** 

The power of secondhand knowledge almost made it too easy for him to access. By the time they’d managed to crack Anson, gotten him to admit that he was working at least partially on Tom Card’s orders, Sam had access to wiretaps taken during the previous weeks; proven communication between Card and Anson. Both were put away for a very long time with a minimal amount of fuss, thanks to Michael’s still-good reputation and Sam’s hard work.

He bought Sam an entire case of pale ale and tried to get on with his new life.

Without Larry’s death on their hands, without the deaths of the guards’ on Fiona’s, their lives were incomparably different, yet somehow the same. Things progressed normally. There was no jail for Fiona; there was no spleen surgery for Sam. Fiona still had her snowglobes and Michael still had his thousand plus dollar Armani suits. More importantly, Nate outlived his original death date.

Just as he relaxed, there was a new twist.

For, having approached his handlers and demanding an out from the agency, Michael was met with the same request – without the promise of his friend’s incarcerations. 

Bring in James and get free. Bring in James and get back in.

He knew for sure what he wanted, and going through the ordeal that was tricking James wasn’t in the cards this time. Riley had taken Card’s place, and she saw an opportunity to make a name for herself on Michael’s back. Naturally, she wanted him to bring in the number one man on her most wanted list. 

“It would mean,” he told Fiona as they took a long walk on the beach, “putting you all in danger. Putting my mom in danger.” He shook his head. “Is it worth all of that?”

“Your freedom’s worth it to me,” Fiona told him. “Your freedom’s worth everything to me.”

He knew it was the answer she’d give him.

By the time he flew out to Columbia to receive his orders, Michael had a fairly good idea how to stop this particular doomsday clock. He just needed the grace of a little extra time. If he had that on his side then he’d be sitting safe and sound.

 

**** 

He managed to avoid deep cover this time. Presenting himself as Michael Westen: rogue agent with a chip on his shoulder proved a much better and more fitting entre into James’ world, and James adored the notion of getting one over on the FBI simply by poaching one of its best agents. It was on James’ orders that he sprung Sonya from the black zone prison she’d been held captive in, though they managed to avoid that nasty chase through the jungle that had troubled them so thoroughly the previous time. Soon he was running ops with Riley listening in, getting closer and closer to entrapping James and Sonya. 

Funnily, he still felt guilty about the Russian woman’s ensuing death. She could be a viper, but she had known no other life, and she craved love like a bear craved salmon. Michael didn’t give it to her, this time.

He had just finished assassinating a rogue diplomat who had pissed off James when the call came in from his sobbing mother.

“Nate’s been in an accident,” his mother informed him. “He didn’t make it.”

And so fate in the form of a drunk driver had taken Nate Westen from the world. Awkwardly, he comforted her, trying to deliver wisdom that he neither owned nor had the will to properly deliver. In the end she hung up sobbing, and Michael was left alone in a grubby motel room, cradling a throwaway cell phone in his hand.

The following day, she called him back with details for the funeral. It would be taking place over the week he was schedule to be away with James.

When he told James he, in his seductive manner, told Michael that he already knew – and that he would provide aid to his family for the trip, if he so desired it.

But Michael knew. He still knew.

“You killed him, didn’t you?”

James gave Michael a thin-pressed smile and stroked Sonya’s golden hair like a cat’s sunny coat. “Men like Nathaniel have loose lips. I couldn’t have someone so untrustworthy so close to my operation. But I assure you, his death was merciful, and I spared his wife and child the indignity of knowing his own egress led to his doom. Does that answer your question?”

Michael swallowed his bile. Even faked a parody of a grin. And he made himself tell James that it was good Nate was dead, because it was one less leak for them to patch in their network.

*** 

At midnight, his cell phone rang again.

The voice on the other end of the phone was self-deprecating, self-aware, but sardonic. “Second chances don’t come scott-free, kid.” He coughed heavily into the phone.

“Larry. Are you all right?” Michael asked.

“Looks like I’m meeting Saint Peter anyway – a little off-schedule, but I’ll be there just the same. Sorry about Nate. Guess it’s easier going this way…then how he went before.” More hacking. “I know what you’re thinking,” Larry said. “I know you’re gonna call me loony tunes. But I’ve got a foolproof plan. To get James, you’ll have to show him how powerless he is. The emperor’s got no clothes. Got it?”

It flooded back to Michael in a sickening wave. It was an old plan of Larry’s, a dirty one, that involved sewing little beads of C4 into an article of clothing, then setting them off in a hail of firepower, bullets if necessary, slicing the hapless victim into bloody chunks in five seconds.

“It’ll never work!”

“You have to do it, and you know you have to do it. It’s the only way you can save everyone and get back to the states in time.”

Then Larry hung up.

And Michael used the last minutes before the FBI was set to converge on James’ compound looking for dental floss.

*** 

He delivered the jacket – a beautiful Armani wool blend suitcoat, a token of his grand esteem – to James before taking Sonya for a walk on the beach. She had a bottle of vodka with her and they sipped it together, toasting the future. Michael would soon have James’ network in his hands, and James would soon retire to an island in the tropics far from the rabble and conflict he’d kicked up.

It was too perfect.

He should have expected Sonya to lodge a bullet in his shoulder, but instead it came as quite a shock.

She was already ranting. “I know you’re going to bring him in. And I know I can’t go back to that prison,” Sonya said calmly, showing him the tiny white pill she’d been cradling in her hand, then popping it in her mouth. Michael blindly reached for her but she was swallowing, glugging her poisoned saliva. Slumped across the sandblasted rocks by the coastline, she managed a little toast. “Das Vadanya,” she smiled, her face taking on a mask-like beauty as the warmth fled from her eyes.

Michael collapsed onto the sand, feeling the warm, sticky rush of blood as it poured through his fingers and down his inner arm. He opened his eyes, meeting James’ as the older man hung his head over the balcony of his beach house. The confusion and displeasure that showed on his face gave way to horror as Michael reached for the breast pocket of his shirt, pressed the trigger on the C4 pack.

And turned everything red.

*** 

He had fleeting memories after that; of his mother crying over him at the pop-up hospital the military had sent him to; of doctors remarking on his progress, of Fiona’s foot jabbing the small of his back. But his first coherent memory was of Sam forcing him to drink, forcing him to live.

Michael did live; through sheer force of will. A week later, he, Fiona and Madeline attended a memorial service for Nate in Las Vegas. Ruth was distraught but still coherent; he made sure to monitor her alcohol intake, paranoid in the extreme about her addiction – but there was nothing to be scared about. This Ruth had seen her husband bravely struggle to live; she didn’t feel cheated by an assassin’s bullet - and so she didn’t collapse but grew stronger for her son instead. There would be no need to his family to provide succor for Charlie.

Michael decided then and there that nobody needed to know the true nature of Nate’s death, that it needed to remain a locked secret in the recesses of his mind for all of eternity. He left Ruth’s happy, healthy family and mentally closed the door on his guardianship of little Charlie – for his own health, for the child’s, too.

****

They came home to a balmy, cloudy Florida, where they collectively attended Nate’s burial. Sam cried, Barry brought a girlfriend half his age, and Michael stared at the peaceful face of his little brother in the casket for an uncomfortably long time before letting go, for once and for all, of the sibling he’d tried to protect from the world. The man who had killed Nate had died painfully – there was no more bloodlust, no more desire for revenge- just the palm trees and a blue sky.

At Carlitos afterward, he and Fiona had been exchanging memories of Nate with a tearful Madeline and Jesse when they were approached by a woman in a navy suit.

Olivia Riley.

“We need to talk. In private,” she told Michael.

Michael found an empty alcove and made himself scarce. To his relief, there was nobody else to hear them.

Roughly, the words came from her throat. “Your government owes you a great deal.”

Michael’s answer was simple, flat. “And I only want two things from it.”

***

_One Week Later,  
Paris, France_

The city of lights glittered as brightly as it had years ago. Michael soaked in the warm spring air, the delicious sunlight, the sophisticated scenery as a tourist would. He and Fiona wrung every bit of sophisticated joy as they could from it before their inevitable return to Miami. Their vacation, however, thanks to the FBI, could just be technically endless, and with Barry renting the loft from them at a reduced rate they had a nice income pouring in for the little objects de arte that Fi so adored.

Their peaceful vacation lasted exactly a month before Michael heard the sudden, telltale sound of somebody picking through his kitchen. He drew his gun automatically and turned the corner with a sharp glare.

Of all of the people in the entire city of Paris, he had not expected to turn the corner into his kitchen and come upon an underwear-clad Sam Axe slugging milk right from the carton.

He instinctively threw his hands up and spilled the entire jug down the front of his body. “Jeeze, Mike!”

“Sam. What an unpleasant surprise,” observed Fiona, emerging from behind him with their haul from the farmer’s market.

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked Sam, slipping the gun into the waistband of his pants.

“We don’t have time for this,” Fiona hissed, shooting a look at the closed door behind her. She’d been particularly intense about returning home, and Michael had no clue why.

Sam shrugged. “Long story short, I walked in on Elsa and the pool boy going horizontal on the couch.”

“And?” 

“I ran all the way here – I couldn’t stand sticking around Florida and bumping into her.” Sam glowered at his own hands. “Do you think she’d take my call? “

“MICHAEL!” Fiona hissed, elbowing his side.

“Why not? I’m still the best thing she’s ever had in her life, right?” Sam asked.

“Fi,” Michael said, nudging her back, “go back to the bathroom while I deal with him.”

Fi did, abandoning the groceries and forcing Michael to organize them. Two minutes later he and Sam heard a high-pitched shriek. “Woah, you did NOT knock,” Jesse’s voice rang out. 

“Oh yeah - Jesse came with me. He had the frequent flier miles, and who was I to fight it?” asked Sam.

“Sorry, Fiona…” came a feminine voice.

“…And he found out where Riley had Pierce stationed….” Sam added.

Then Michael picked up the scent of a freshly-lit Marlboro, and heard the back door open. “Sam, have you found a place that delivers chowder yet? I swear to God, I’m going to starve to death in this place.” Maddie glared. “And they talk about how WONDERFUL the restaurants in France are! You can’t even find a decent meal for under twenty francs!”

“And since the two of us were leaving…” Sam trailed off, grinning maniacally.

“Heh heh heh I’m gonna kill you,” Michael growled.

“Chowder, Michael!” Madeline hissed.

“Uh…towels. Does anyone have towels?” Pierce yelled. 

Fiona stormed out of the bathroom. “Are you going to sit there and allow them to use my lipstick in such an atrocious way?!”

“Hey, my lady’s getting pruney! Towels, please!” Jesse called.

“At least you have a lady, brother!” Sam pouted.

“GUYS!” Michael bellowed. “I’m standing in the middle of a six-room cheesebox in Paris, I’m holding an orange, and I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with the rest of my life!”

Silence dominated the room. Then Sam spoke up.

“Your landlady mentioned that there’s this couple she knows. They emigrated from Russia. According to her, their whole nest egg went bye bye. Looks like they trusted the wrong guy.” Sam shrugged. “I guess we could look into it. If you’re not too attached to that retirement of yours, Mikey.”

Then Michael took a good look at them, all of them. These were his friends, his comrades.

They were his family.

And Fiona was walking toward him like an angel in her white dress.

Holding a plastic wand with two blue lines on it and staring at him, utterly sanguine.

They would deal with that when peace was restored. He reached for the counter, pulling free a pair of familiar sunglasses. Spies could try to outrun who they were, but in the end they were all the same – trying to help the world, help their country, right up to their dying day.

He donned the specs. “I’m on it.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **Burn Notice** , all of whom are the property of the **USA Network/Flying Glass of Milk/Matt Nix**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


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